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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27537535">Suffering</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbisari/pseuds/Carbisari'>Carbisari</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Short &amp; Sweet, Surreal, Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:27:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,867</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27537535</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbisari/pseuds/Carbisari</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Sufferer has wandered this grey waste eternally. You will help them remember.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Suffering</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote this in one sitting in July of 2019, without planning or forethought to put a story to how my mental illness and isolation effects the self. Writing is really the only skill I am very good at, and I hope to write a lot more after this now that I have found a good site to host my work on.</p><p>Thank you for taking the time to read this; at least something good has been made from all the anguish I have endured.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The wind is howling today. There is a dread note to it that I cannot help but appreciate. Usually the air is still, and the heat of the vast sun above cuts through the dense, cloudy atmosphere that covers this world. Today is a nice change of pace with this long, flat valley and growths of hard lichen upon the dark rocks that dot it. Even so, I cannot help but miss the nigh-impassable mountains of shale and obsidian. The sharp cuts that traveling those mountains leave have become a steady, throbbing comfort in tandem with the sharp pains that pierce my torso.</p><p>Traveling is slow; my digits have become long over the ages of crawling, and I have become so accustomed to walking on the balls of my feet that they have changed like my fingers and hands. When I try to walk normally now, I only manage to fall over. I do not mind this hunched over, tedious movement; or at least, I don't remember disliking it. It would be easier to stand, easier to think, if I didn't have these three swords jutting from my chest.</p><p>It is as if I had slept on my stomach, and someone walked up and shunted these three blades into me in different parts of my back. Each one is different, but they all have runes along the blunt sides of the blade, and they glow with a deep blue light.</p><p>Please understand, friend, that I cannot die. I am hungry, thirsty, exhausted, and in constant agonizing pain. I don't remember if I ever had a beginning, but I know for certain that I will never die.</p><p>You do not have eyes, so I will tell you who you are, and then I will tell you a story, and then I will continue on my journey. Here, in the middle of this valley among the poisonous lichen do you sit. You are a length of sharp obsidian that I have planted in the ground, so that I will remember where I've been, and that something other than myself has known of what I have experienced. It has to be you; the biting-things certainly won't listen, I have tried. The tall ones are very good listeners and are very friendly at first, but they cause worse pain than isolation or being cut on the hands and feet and the throbbing pain in the chest. </p><p>I remember this memory vividly; the first tall one let me lay down in their arms for just a moment. They are like rusted metal; almost like someone lifted iron from the ground and shaped it into a vague humanoid form and then forgot about it and left it to rust. When I had almost fallen asleep, they clawed out my left eye and ate it. I was only able to get away by hugging the tall one close to me, so that the swords piercing my chest drove their blades into the tall one's form. I ate them, in turn, and it was the only thing besides rock and flint chips that I can remember to have eaten. I am beginning to ramble, so I will get to the point.</p><p> </p><p>You are the luckiest of the markers I have put down, because this memory I will tell you is the most interesting thing to happen in a very, very long time... I think. I cannot remember if something more interesting happened before. It does not matter.</p><p>Before the wind started to howl, before I came upon this valley, before I climbed the mountains that lead me here, I was traveling across a vast boulder field. I wish I could remember the words to describe it well; every step had to be placed carefully unless I wanted to break one of my ankles. It was amazingly flat, and I could see very far. I had looked down to be sure my next step was secure, but when I looked up there was a figure standing before me!</p><p>By some supernatural force they floated three inches off the field. They had an incredibly reflective chrome exoskeleton that reminded me of a suit of armour. Their hands were like clawed gauntlets and they had a long cape of the most pure black I have ever seen; and I have seen the obsidian mesas. I could not see their face or head, for when I tried to perceive it I only saw an intensely bright light in its place.</p><p>Immediately I reached down to pick up a particularly sharp rock with both my hands, and was about to strike the creature down when it held out its hand, palm up, and said to me "Hold, Friend. I Am Here To Help You." I struck anyway. I do not remember where, or when, but I have heard those words before, and for some reason I cannot recall, they enrage me. I may be lean, but I am still quite large and my blow was true. The figure crumpled, then froze before it hit the boulders, and righted itself. It was at that moment that I knew - they were like me, and could not die.</p><p>In an anger that I did not fully understand, I yelled "Who are you?! Why do you bother me?" Without waiting for an answer I continued to make my way across the boulder field; keeping my eyes down but my ears perked as I awaited a response. Their voice was hard, but comforting, but I knew that the comfort was a lie. Somehow I knew. "You Are Suffering. You Are Isolated; Alone. I Have Come To Bring You Home." They kept pace a few steps behind me as I made my way across the boulders. I stopped every once in a while to pick one up, give it a look over for any interesting markings or colours or sometimes fossils. In my cooling anger I replied without turning around, "I don't know what this home is you speak of. I don't ever remember having one. If you are here to help, as you say, you can start by removing one of these swords. I cannot sleep because of them, and I would travel faster without them too." I started to cry at the thought of being able to sleep, and I grew self-conscious, keeping my gaze down and forward and away from the being that stood so clean... so perfect. I am not like that, my claws are long, my horns have grown huge, and in places my skin has grown hard and gray like the rocks and cliffs and mountains all around me. I have never seen another being like me, I am alone in the world.</p><p>The being put their armoured hand on my shoulder, and for a moment I forgot I was in pain. "I Cannot Do That. All I Can Do Is Take You Home. With Me." The hope that built in my throat dropped into my stomach, and I jerked away from its touch. I continued my journey for a very long while in silence. The sun does not move in the sky. The only way to tell that time has passed at all is by the movement of the dark grey clouds. The armoured one followed me, and did not touch me again as we made our way to the base of the mountain range, and I began my long steady climb up the slanted sides. It did not walk or climb, merely floated, as if by the beating of invisible wings I could not see or hear.</p><p>I did not say it out loud, but the company was... good, even if it was the silent kind of company, like the kind you are giving to me here and now. Through it all I was seething on the inside, hope built and turned to ash in an instant. Eventually I grabbed hold of a large jagged shard of obsidian that was jutting out of the rock to keep me steady as I lashed out a second time. The back of my clawed hand hitting the stoic creature in the chest. They were not expecting this one, and they hit the ground, and tumbled a long ways down the sloped hillside of the mountain's base. I screamed at them, I did not know my voice could boom like that, and as I said the following words I was terrified. Of myself, of the being whose armour had been dented and scratched and marred by the one-two punch of me and gravity. "THAT WOULD BE WORSE! That would be worse than this! You didn't say it, but this 'home' would give me food, and water, correct?! I do not remember your people's name, but I KNOW what you are. Near immaculate beings. I would be surrounded by things like you. A desire to help, but completely unable to understand what it is like to BE in pain, to SUFFER!" The being struggled to stand; the bits of gravel underneath it stirred and rolled downhill as it looked up to me, and said nothing, betraying that my words were truth. "I HATE YOU! I HATE you ALL!! I wanted to forget, but you being here reminded me, and I hate you more for it. To be around you is a torture unlike any other I have felt. To know I am unable to be helped, to see others around me be happy and loved, while I languish in plain sight is so immensely painful!"</p><p>I begin to cry, the second time in such a short span after an eternity. I take this jagged lance of obsidian, and crack it free from its base as I crawl back down to where the being struggled against gravity. I picked them up. They were surprisingly light, as I gave my ultimatum. "Remove these swords from my body, and I will go with you. If you do not, I will kill you, as I have always done to those who hurt me." For a long time, we were both silent. Me, crying as I stared into the unending light of the being, and it watching back, as it lifted its hand, and placed it on my arm. I will not lie; to be touched gently like that feels very comforting. It was an almost intoxicating, and for a moment I relaxed, but the throbbing in my chest roared back at the sensation, and I remembered how much my hide burns from the sun and how deep the obsidian lance cut into my hand and how monstrous I look compared to the being I held. I once more grew enraged, and impaled them through the breastplate with my weapon. They bled a kind of cyan liquid, and the light that radiated from their head faded, leaving a face that looked only a little like the image I saw when I spied my reflection in the volcanic glass I held in my hand.</p><p>That is how I collected you, and the body that rests against your side. Remember this story for me. It may be an eternity or two before I see this part of the world again.</p>
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